Masterpost of children perceiving my gender at work
-The twins. The boy thought I was a boy, the girl thought I was a girl. They were talking about genitals in Finnish (and with like, child words for them, so I was having a hard time following) when the girl asked me "You have a vulva, right?" and I was composing in my mind the sentence "It is not polite to ask people about their genitals" in Finnish, when the boy jumped in "No, Jan has a penis, because [they] are..." he trailed off. Stared into the distance for a few seconds. Then he whispered "poikatyttö... poikatyttö..." (Boygirl in Finnish) and that was the end of the conversation.
-"Are you a boy?" "No." "Are you a girl?" "No." "Are you... a child?"
-"Why do you have a beard if you're not a boy?" "I'm South-European. We are hairy." With this one I later mentioned my wife and she pointed at me and yelled "SO YOU ARE A BOY!" and I had to tell her about gay marriage.
-"Sorry, my sister thinks you are a boy, but you're not... I think." Confused face.
-The boy who tried to tease me by repeating that I was a girl (he was convinced that I was a boy), prompting me to read a book about gender dysphoria at story time (we had picked it up at the library recently) and I showed him the completely black page representing the "dysphoria monster" and told him that that's how he made me feel when he called me a girl. He never did it again. Also later we had a conversation where I asked him if I should dye my hair pink and he said "but then you'd be a girl!" And I was like.... So if I dye it blue I'd be a boy? And he said "yeah". So. There's that.
-"Are you a boy?" "No." "Are you a girl?" "No." "Are you... a ghost?"
-The girl who finally made a connection that pronouns were somehow indicative of gender (the kids are mostly Finnish speakers, a language that doesn't have gendered pronouns, and I work at an English-speaking daycare). Then she was playing at catching me with some kids and went "come on, let's catch.... this person!". She used that several times and then asked "Jan, are you a boy or a girl?" and I told her I was neither, and that if she wanted to know whether to call me he or she, what I used was they, and then she used that for the rest of the game, apologizing and quickly correcting herself if she called me something else. She was six when this happened!
-"You look like a strong guy!" "Thank you! I do think I'm quite strong." "Because your muscles are big [pointing at my arm]. And your legs are even bigger! Can you lift a truck?"
*Special mention to the grandma from when I did a practice at an old people's home. I off-handedly mentioned my wife, and she went "oooh, you are a boy!" The implication being, "I am so old and blind that I couldn't see that, sorry". I was like "I'm not about to tell this octogenarian with Parkinsons about nonbinary people, in Finnish" so I said "oh, you know, girls can marry girls now, there was a new law like three years ago...". The next week my supervisor tells me that the woman had asked her about where I was, saying, "Yes, your student, the one who is not a girl and not a boy." She got it in one.
